I received today a letter from Amber Rudd MP, who appears to be “Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Energy & Climate Change”. As energy prices are through the roof, and blackouts are threatened for the winter, and there hasn’t been any climate change for eighteen years, I found myself speculating as to what Ms. Rudd has been doing with her time.

But now we know. She tells me that her top priority in Europe is the MSR. This is Market Stability Reserve, the Commission’s latest gimmick to address the fact that their EU Emissions Trading Scheme has never worked properly, nor is likely to. One of the problems of the European project is that no matter how dramatic is the failure of any initiative, the institutions never have the courage to say “OK guys. We got that one wrong. We’ll scrap it and go back to the drawing board”. Oh no. They press on regardless, with tweak following tweak; temporary fix replacing temporary fix, chasing the dream long after it’s become a nightmare. Or as we say, flogging a dead horse. We see it with the ETS. We see it with the €uro. Their hubris will never allow them to admit failure, no matter how self-evident that failure has become to the voter.

And so it is with Amber. I have replied to her as follows:

Dear Amber,

ETS MSR

Thank you for your letter on the proposed Market Stability Reserve as it applies to the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme. But I cannot support sticking plasters of this kind. The ETS has comprehensively failed in its objectives – which were themselves questionable. It has imposed a vast layer of unnecessary bureaucracy on a major industry. It has spawned a totally non-productive activity in emissions trading. It was sold to us as a market mechanism. But if a market mechanism requires constant regulatory intervention to maintain a credible price, then it is not a market mechanism at all. It is an administrative device – and a hugely inefficient and damaging administrative device.

If you must have a mechanism to reduce CO2 emissions, then a straightforward carbon tax would be more efficient, more predictable, and less damaging. Better still, you should abandon your futile efforts to control emissions. They are undermining industrial competitiveness, and driving energy intensive industries off-shore, taking their jobs and their investment with them. Often they go to jurisdictions with lower environmental standards, arguably increasing emissions. They are also forcing households and pensioners into fuel poverty.

Well done Roger, it might be good to attack carbon taxation directly. Sending Carbon Credit cash to a third world Country will cause them to spend it, thus uplifting their own Carbon Production. This is counter to the stated aim of reducing Global carbon production.

A good reply Roger it will be interesting to see if you get a response. Here in BC we have been told our gas prices are going to go down 13% over the next year. A phenomenon unknown in the UK and against the religion of the incumbents in Brussels!

Apparently it is due to strong gas production (don’t know if that is from fracking) and lower demand, this has allowed gas storage to rise. Now we are entering winter and as stocks get used up I expect prices will adjust…up! Nice while it lasts though……

Absolute agreement with you Roger, our problem is in getting heard through the media. It has clearly agreed, that all disention on the carbon footprint is no longer to be tolerated by the BBC, or given any mention. By pointing out that the stated objective of buying Carbon Credits is in fact counter productive, the population should be questioning, why do we tax it this way?

Meanwhile at the House of Lords the scratchy stuff goes on,and on. We have to solve the CC targets of 2030 and 50 within the next 10 years, otherwise the lobbying money won’t be available. By the sound of it the money will still be arched against the wall with boots being filled. Watch this and prepare for major brain ache!

You have to be kidding Colin….for one thing I am woman,I don’t have 2 hours available to sit and listen to old, and slightly younger, farts waffling on, even though I was once a neighbour of Lord Selborne.
Also if your comment is anything to go by I can tell I will easily begin to lose the will to live if I did!

I understand you…but I have to follow the rattle from them. The interesting piece was the EU rep at the end part. The Continent/UK and interconnectors, which is where the free energy drivers are at variance and with a touch of engineering all is fixed.

Its the business of systems engineering that no government can ever understand. In the context of above…. its enormous. However, the hands are clearly out for the Ban ki Moon style of…. give me more.

The evidence required by that committee centred on the IPCC offering, that keeps changing. The experts simply do not know. so current policy is wrong, wrong, wrong. China knows that, hence Lima is a big fat failure..apart from expenses.

I wouldn’t be surprised Brin. See today that Spain has lost 900 jobs from an energy intensive industry and they are on the streets. that is what it might come to here eventually. Nobody is listening apart from UKIP and it is all falling down around them. I have never been so disillusioned with politics as I am now.

I totally agree Katie with your comment “I have never been so disillusioned with politics as I am now.” This situation cannot go on for much longer can it? How much longer will it take until the hard working folk of the UK rise up against the decades of mismanagement by successive governments which have left the majority struggling under massive cuts and sky high prices whilst the millionaires cream off more millions?

Jane and Katie, I’ve been disillusioned, not with just the politics, but with the people of the UK from when Blair was put in office over three general elections, each time with a declining vote. The ‘real’ people of the UK are not paying attention and they are going to pay the price. If UKIP fails to make it at the coming election I predict that that will be the last ‘general’ election we will see in the UK. Just local elections to elect your councillors such that each district eventually has the required ‘ethnic’ council. England will no longer exist. It’s up to the people now.

Yes it is up to the people now…there needs to be a leader to rally the apathetic masses, someone who can be trusted and who has the power to make change happen. But who(?)…not that Russell Brand idiot that’s for sure.

This winter seems to be building up nicely for a cold one and the apathetic masses are going to feel the pinch with the rising energy costs. They will surely be upset when they eventually realise they are being right royally screwed. How will they respond I wonder? I suspect the sudden drop in petrol prices at the pump is a crumb for the masses, at least an attempt to keep a lid this steaming pot.

The puppeteers want to see Russia back under control, and oil is being used as the financial weapon. Oversupply of demand brings Global price reductions, Russia’s income from oil sales is reduced and once control is re-established prices will rise again very quickly.